Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- AOL Inc.’s Brad Garlinghouse, an
executive brought on in 2009 to help revive growth at the
Internet company, is stepping down, according to a person with
direct knowledge of the matter.

Garlinghouse, who has run the applications and commerce
group and AOL’s Silicon Valley operations, previously worked at
Yahoo! Inc. and Silver Lake Partners. Sarah Lacy, a senior
editor at TechCrunch, the technology blog that AOL bought last
year, also intends to depart, according to another person
familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified
because the plans haven’t been made public.

The turnover deals a blow to AOL’s comeback effort, led by
Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong. Already the company has
struggled to hang on to users and advertisers, which are
increasingly flocking to social-networking sites such as
Facebook Inc. AOL shares lost 37 percent this year before today.

“Brad’s a really strong manager and when you lose strong
people, it’s never a good thing for a company,” said Geoff
Ralston, a partner at educational startup incubator Imagine K12,
who worked with Garlinghouse at Yahoo.

Garlinghouse joined AOL before its spinoff from Time Warner
Inc., part of a team tasked with transforming the dial-up
Internet service into a modern Web portal.

‘Manifesto’ Writer

Garlinghouse gained renown at Yahoo in 2006 for sending a
scathing memo to the top brass. In what came to be known as the
“Peanut Butter Manifesto,” Garlinghouse said Yahoo had spread
itself too thinly across many businesses. He was hired at AOL to
bring that same sense of focus to the New York-based company.

Lacy, an author and former columnist for Businessweek and
co-host of Yahoo’s TechTicker video series, joined TechCrunch in
2009, before the blog’s acquisition by AOL. Her departure
follows that of Michael Arrington, the TechCrunch founder who
left in September to start a venture fund.

Kiersten Hollars, a spokeswoman for AOL in Palo Alto,
California, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Garlinghouse’s departure was previously reported by the
GigaOm technology site.